Forest, unfortunately for himself, misconstrued forbearance into fear, and went his way at last, through treason and perjury, to the stake.  In the meantime the Observants were left in possession of the royal chapel, the weak brother died in prison, and the king, when at Greenwich, continued to attend service, submitting to listen, as long as submission was possible, to the admonitions which the friars used the opportunity to deliver to him.

In these more courteous days we can form little conception of the licence which preachers in the sixteenth century allowed themselves, or the language which persons in high authority were often obliged to bear.  Latimer spoke as freely to Henry VIII. of neglected duties, as to the peasants in his Wiltshire parish.  St. Ambrose did not rebuke the Emperor Theodosius more haughtily than John Knox lectured Queen Mary and her ministers on the vanities of Holyrood; and Catholic priests, it seems, were not afraid to display even louder disrespect.

On Sunday, the first of May, 1532, the pulpit at Greenwich was occupied by Father Peto, afterwards Cardinal Peto, famous through Europe as a Catholic incendiary; but at this time an undistinguished brother of the Observants convent.  His sermon had been upon the story of Ahab and Naboth, and his text had been, “Where the dogs licked the blood of Naboth, even there shall they lick thy blood, O king.”  Henry, the court, and most likely Anne Boleyn herself, were present; the first of May being the great holy-day of the English year, and always observed at Greenwich with peculiar splendour.  The preacher had dilated at length upon the crimes and the fall of Ahab, and had drawn the portrait in all its magnificent wickedness.  He had described the scene in the court of heaven, and spoken of the lying prophets who had mocked the monarch’s hopes before the fatal battle.  At the end, he turned directly to Henry, and assuming to himself the mission of Micaiah, he closed his address in the following audacious words:—­“And now, O king,” he said, “hear what I say to thee.  I am that Micaiah whom thou wilt hate, because I must tell thee truly that this marriage is unlawful, and I know that I shall eat the bread of affliction and drink the waters of sorrow, yet because the Lord hath put it in my mouth I must speak it.  There are other preachers, yea too many, which preach and persuade thee otherwise, feeding they folly and frail affections upon hopes of their own worldly promotion; and by that means they betray thy soul, thy honour, and thy posterity; to obtain fat benefices, to become rich abbots and bishops, and I know not what.  These I say are the four hundred prophets who, in the spirit of lying, seek to deceive thee.  Take heed lest thou, being seduced, find Ahab’s punishment, who had his blood licked up by the dogs.”

Henry must have been compelled to listen to many such invectives.  He left the chapel without noticing what had passed; and in the course of the week Peto went down from Greenwich to attend a provincial council at Canterbury, and perhaps to communicate with the Nun of Kent.  Meantime a certain Dr. Kirwan was commissioned to preach on the other side of the question the following Sunday.